Getting Back to Normal?

First a response to the comment on yesterday's post (you can see the link to the comment at the end of the post):

I didn't mean to exclude the Federal Government from the examples. It just wasn't necessary to include it. The issue was not about government spending as much as the impact on the average person's earnings... now and in the future... which is impacting tax revenues and may lead to new forms of taxation such as Gov. Granholm's hare-brained idea to have a sales tax on services. That's $15 for the lawn mowing and 90 cents for the governor.

To your point... government, in general, believes that "cut backs" are moving from a 5% annual budget increase to a 4% increase. The thought process ends at the digit and never gets to the word "increase".

Grim news continues to pour in from Asia and that has tended to diminish the space and time appropriated to the nutballs in Iraq who continue to kill randomly in the hope that they will ... what? They have no agenda except that they hope for power. They have been described as nihilists. That seems appropriate. They are good at destruction... nothing else.

It will be interesting to see how the Islamist extremists will attempt to take advantage of the chaos to further their political goals. Don't think that will happen? Let's just say that humanitarian actions are not part of their repertoire.

Somehow, I think that the Bush administration will be severely criticised for whatever action it takes with regard to the aid provided to the tsunami-devestated areas. Too much spending, too little spending, too much military involvement, too little military involvement, helping Muslims areas, not helping them enough.... Wanna bet? I think I heard him say something to effect that whatever money is spent by the military to provide relief assistance should be added to the military budget. That sounds like a good starting point for criticism. After all, how can we call it aid if it doesn't come out of our budget?

Global warming has definitely hit the Midwest. The 6" of snow and zero-degrees temperature was replaced by two days in the 50s. Let's hear it for global warming in Michigan! You know, there were times... geologically speaking... when there was no ice covering large portions of the earth. Without the isthmus of Panama and a little more on each side, the climate of the northern hemisphere would be dramatically different... and that isthmus wasn't always there. The earth changes and life adapts... or dies out. It's more likely we'll die from nutcase Muslims or car accidents than global warming. In fact, with the ice storms coming this way, that is more than likely.

It's good to be crochety again in 2005!